Media 'U-Turn' on Strauss-Kahn Hotel Maid

The hotel maid who accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of forcing her into a sexual encounter has lost her status as a sympathetic figure in the American media. Plus: Joyner says Smiley, West created climate for Halperin.

The hotel maid who accuses Dominique Strauss-Kahn of forcing her into a sexual encounter has lost her status as a sympathetic figure in the American media as reporters and prosecutors say they have uncovered inconsistent statements and lies about her past.

" 'Now it’s going to be this man who would have been president taken down by this nogoodnik who has a druggie boyfriend in prison and who lied from the moment she tried to get into the United States.' " Her column was headlined, "When a Predator Collides With a Fabricator."

The Strauss-Kahn case has attracted journalists around the globe — from Norway, the Philippines, Germany, France, Japan and China, according to Assistant Chief Walter Glowacz of the New York Department of Public Safety for the Courts.

Cynthia Magnus, writing last month for the website Downtown Express, quoted David Bookstaver, communications director for the New York State Courts as saying, "I have never seen a press assemblage like this."

And that was before the latest revelations.

The New York Post, which in May ran such headlines as "PERV? MOI?" over a photo of Strauss-Kahn and "HORNY TOAD REMAINS EAGER TO SLEAZE," now calls the Guinean immigrant a "so-called victim" after trumpeting its story, "Maid cleaning up as 'hooker'," attributed to "a source close to the defense investigation."

"The so-called victim, whose web of lies has crippled the Manhattan DA's case against the former International Monetary Fund boss, played host to a parade of paying male visitors in the weeks after Strauss-Kahn's arrest, a prosecution source said," they wrote.

"Before she ever walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn's dazzling suite at the Sofitel, his accuser was well aware of his VIP status — and planning to get her hands in his deep pockets, sources told The Post."

Even without the New York Post allegations, the inconsistencies and revelations about her associations and her past led some writers to draw comparisons with the Duke University lacrosse case, which also had racial overtones.

Three white players on the Duke team were indicted in 2006 on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense. A black woman hired to strip at a team party accused the three of attacking her in a bathroom. The case fell apart when the woman changed her story repeatedly and her account did not add up. Mike Nifong, district attorney of Durham County, N.C., stepped down, ending a nearly 30-year career as a prosecutor.

Then, as now, most in the news media withheld the woman's name in keeping with a belief that naming her would victimize her twice and discourage others from coming forward. When she was exposed as having fabricated her story, news outlets named her.

To recap: As John Solomon reported Sunday in the Daily Beast, "The maid originally alleged that on May 14, Strauss-Kahn, one of the world’s most powerful men as a leading candidate for president of France and then-director of the International Monetary Fund, exited a shower in his luxury suite at the Sofitel hotel in New York City, grabbed her from behind and sexually assaulted her after she entered to clean his suite.

"Bolstered by significant forensic evidence that included Strauss-Kahn's DNA, prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office secured an indictment just days after the attack. But in recent weeks, their case began to unravel as investigators dug deeper into how the maid immigrated to the United States under a political asylum claim that included some false information."

The New York Times first reported the imminent unraveling in a June 30 story by Jim Dwyer, William K. Rashbaum and John Eligon that said "the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are . . . possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering."

Kenneth P. Thompson, lawyer for the accuser, is perhaps best known as the federal prosecutor who brought the criminal case against New York police officers for brutalizing Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in 1997. Thompson told reporters Friday that even if there were problems with the woman’s statements about her personal history, there was ample evidence that a sexual assault had occurred.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, race and class issues will remain a part of it.

After the Duke lacrosse case, Linda Williams, an editor at the News & Observer in Raleigh, wrote to her colleagues, "As the case unfolded over time, I have detected a racial divide, but it is not about the core facts of the case. A very large number of blacks seem detached from the case, but many whites are in overdrive. The blacks who are paying attention have a different view of the meaning of the case than whites. While whites see a righteous crusade for justice, blacks see a massive display of white power and a media responding to that power with unprecedented coverage.

"As a result of this view, blacks do not see this case as significant for the justice system. They do not see better outcomes for them and their [loved] ones should they be falsely accused."

Davidson wrote in the New Yorker: "Friends of minorities? Is it simply that Levy misjudges, rather profoundly, the precarious positions in which poor and powerless [women] in America — or in Guinea, or anywhere — can find themselves? He does seem very worried about the risks to powerful men; but perhaps he needn’t be."

"You’re probably thinking I went too hard him, but no. In reality, I hadn’t gone hard enough — and I knew it. I said I’d wait until something pissed me off so bad that I would have the words harsh enough to express what I was really feeling about him and his side piece — I mean side kick — Cornel West.

"Well, yesterday, when Mark Halperin — a well-respected journalist, employed by a well-respected magazine and a contributor to a well-respected news network — had the audacity to call the president of the United States a dick, that was all I needed.

"While I am appalled at Halperin’s statement . . . I’m even more disgusted with Smiley and West, two brothers who I did have expectations of — and thought I knew. These two have done much worse than what Halperin has done because they set the tone for it, opened the door to it, and must take much of the blame for creating a climate that would make a white, professional journalist feel comfortable verbally and vulgarly attacking the first black president of the United States."

While Halperin has the title of editor-at-large at Time magazine, he does not supervise or assign stories.

"Although the foreign press was eagerly welcomed just months ago, reporters in rebel-controlled areas have recently been harassed and intimidated. Officials of the rebel-led National Transitional Council (NTC) have steadily begun to treat correspondents as hostile elements: some have been prohibited from filming bomb scenes; others have been accused of being spies.

"In several incidents in the months following the February uprising against Gaddafi, rebels have prevented journalists from recording events they consider embarrassing. For example, when a skirmish erupted in March after one fighter ordered another to stop firing an antiaircraft gun outside the town of Brega, which is about 130 miles (210 km) west of the rebel capital, Benghazi, other rebels kept correspondents from filming the incident. On another occasion, journalists were prevented from photographing a rebel who accidentally shot himself in April near Ajdabiyah, approximately 95 miles (155 km) west of Benghazi."

"OurChinatown, launched this spring, is an Asian American Journalists Association demonstration project.

"The strategy for OurChinatown is to distribute news — and to let the community contribute — by smartphone. Phones are a next-up tool for journalism and are the technology of choice for some communities. They are everywhere in sight on the streets of Chinatown.

"The vision is a low-cost, mobile news network where a reporting team writes, takes photos and videos, edits them and posts them on the fly with smartphones. It is envisioned that community members will be able to see where reporters are on a digital map, feed them information or post their own news updates and photos."

"The Living Textbook is a demonstration project proposed by Dinah Eng, founding director of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Executive Leadership Program and a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service.

"The class is at McCollough-Unis School in Dearborn, Mich., and is funded by the McCormick Foundation and The Ford Foundation. The idea is to help students learn about journalism and to post their stories, photos and videos online. I am co-director of the project with Emilia Askari. We worked together at the Detroit Free Press for years."

" 'Some undocumented Filipinos wish he [Vargas] should’ve just shut up,' Tagala said several told him. Fearing that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will start pursuing them, he said, 'They’re more afraid now that he has told his story. Filipinos are not going to live a quiet life being undocumented.'

"Among Filipino journalists, however, 'reactions were mostly positive,' said Esther Chavez, U.S. sales director at Inquirer.net. 'The only negative [may be] the apprehension that more scrutiny will be made on journalists applying or already employed.' Undocumented Filipino journalists echoed similar concerns.

" 'They are worried that what Jose did will shine a light on undocumented journalists. Many of the Filipino reporters are just trying to work and live in the shadows,' said Cristina Pastor, founding editor of The FilAm, a new online magazine for Filipino Americans in New York."

" 'We have lost a lot of revenue by not offering online products,' Campbell said. 'We are looking for members to go digital or at least have a website.' Initially, he wants member newspapers to move to digital publishing yet at the same time publish print editions to meet the needs of the newspapers' online and print audiences.

"Campbell, publisher of the Arizona Informant, which is based in Phoenix, made his comments on Friday, following his election to a two-year term during NNPA's 2011 Annual Convention June 22 -25 in Chicago. Campbell succeeds Danny J. Bakewell, Sr., publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel."

The more likely move would be from a newspaper's features department to its editorial page, but Rose Russell did the opposite at the Toledo Blade this year.

She tells Journal-isms both have their virtues: "Journalists should strive to be in editorial departments," Russell said by email. "In nearly 16 years in The Blade's editorial department, I learned much about the nuts and bolts of our nation. Though pondering politics, policy, and other details of infrastructure is consuming, the experience provided me insight that I might not otherwise have obtained.

"While there, I met and sat in on editorial board meetings with a young African-American from Illinois who had the audacity to be candidate for president of the United States; with billionaire George Soros who spent millions trying to keep George W. Bush out of the White House for a second term, and I met the Rev. Jesse Jackson during one of his campaigns for the less fortunate in Toledo.

"As a columnist, I embraced the fight for democracy that a remarkable woman named Aung San Suu Kyi has given her life to in Myanmar; I wrote often about Indonesia and began to witness Muslims' increasing impact on the world. In the aftermath of 9/11, it became more apparent to me that America's racial divide has more to do with economics than skin color.

"It was time for a change . . . and after a series of events, some of them quite disappointing, my move came at the perfect time. I had been thinking about doing something different for about a couple of years anyway, and quite honestly, I had thought about features. The move has been an answer to prayer, and it has proved positive for me, and I want to believe, to The Blade.

"One recent afternoon a colleague told me: 'You have been writing up a storm.' I have been. I'm meeting fascinating people doing interesting things with their lives. I have interviewed the Rembrandt expert about one of the 17th century artist's paintings; I spoke to CBS News' chief national correspondent Byron Pitts about his amazing story about stuttering, and I have talked with a woman trying to help families communicate with their elderly loved ones with memory loss.

"So yes . . . there is life after editorial, and it's pretty glorious. Editorialists and columnists looking down from their seats in Ivory Towers don't have to be so up in age that they should expect to retire from the seemingly dull gray world of Editorial. The colorful world of the features department has helped me to remember what makes America so great: its people and what they do. Editorial was terrific. It made me grow up as a journalist, you might say. Now I have a more mature and better rounded writer's view that I believe benefits our readers.

"Clearly, my experience proves how vital is every department at newspapers. We need the news, sports, business, editorial, and features departments to give readers a full and complete view of what's happening around them."

"The cartoon appears to be two black male prisoners using poor grammar talking about being in jail. The males are supposed to be two white men. The color that was used for these cartoon characters is the exact same shade that this paper used for Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox in the May 19 edition, but as it appears the cartoon is offensive.

". . . Although we cannot do anything about the papers that have been printed, we removed the colorized cartoon from the website and replaced it with the original pen and ink drawing, which we find acceptable."

"We have also included the original pen and ink version of the cartoon here so that our readers can see for themselves what our intent was."

In the comments section, one reader wrote, "What about all of the white people, we have feelings too. . . ."

Another said, "Apology accepted. BTW — I'm not offended, although I look exactly like the guy on the right... LOL"

* Larry Jackson and Toroes Thomas are just $920 away from their goal of raising $5,000 to document a trip to China by six students from Baltimore’s inner city who attend Carver Vocational Technical High School. They leave Thursday morning, said Dean Lynes, who trains young people in broadcast production for the Baltimore City Public Schools. More information at www.baltimoretochina.com.

* "July 4th marks the forty-fifth birthday of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)," Michael R. Lemov wrote for Nieman Watchdog. "Passed by Congress in 1966, and reluctantly signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on the last day before it would have been pocket-vetoed, FOIA has revolutionized public access to government documents and records. It was used last year more than 590,000 times, by news organizations, citizens and businesses. They mostly succeeded in obtaining the government information they sought. But at age 45 FOIA faces a new world and new challenges."

* Ray Metoyer, an Atlanta broadcast producer, blogged Friday on Cascade Patch: "I don’t normally watch Piers Morgan on CNN, but he was advertising a Monday night interview with Beyoncé, who is back on the scene after taking a year off to rest. But during the interview, I was flabbergasted when this moron asked her a question about her 'booty'! I think TV viewers should rise up and make some righteous noise against this kind of 'journalism.' "

* The Black Voices site under Huffington Post direction "will mimic the typical HuffPo combination of blog writing, aggregation and more traditional reporting, but there is a catch: the core writers and editors will be black," Emily Foxhall wrote for the New York Observer. Managing Editor Rebecca Carroll, " — a black woman herself — plans to avoid what she calls 'Black headline fatigue,' in which every story she reads centers around issues such as violence and unemployment that seem to portray how 'worse off' the black community is."